"The Four Scores of Butter Buying"
Shea Butter is made out of the Shea Nut that grows from the North to South African regions. Most of us know why Shea Butter is a popular ingredient in virtually every skin, hair, and nail product on the market; It has been known to heal stretch marks, cellulite, dark marks, and blemishes, eczema, psoriasis, razor bumps, diaper rash, evens skin tone, eliminates acne, and is an all-natural sun screen!
But what most of us aren’t aware of is that there are precautions to be mindful of when purchasing Shea Butters. And with that in mind, I offer what I like to call the “4 Scores of Butter Buying”.
1. Is it really all natural? – Most companies say they are “all-natural” because it’s the best-selling spiel in the natural industry. But is the Shea Butter all natural when you are adding un-natural preservatives to ensure shelf life? My advice would be to simply purchase your Shea Butters directly from those who distribute it rather than to walk into a store that has hundreds on standby. It’s Butter Baby! directly imports fresh from Ghana and this ensures the next score on the list.
2. Shea Butter actually has an expiration date! Yes! If you’ve ever eaten a stale peanut, you would clearly understand the analogy to a stale Shea Nut. Anything all natural has an expiration date. Usually, Shea-Butters expire within one to two years depending on the stored temperature. If you smell a strong ammonia kind of smell, you smell what’s left of the Shea without the nutrients. Again, there are no nutrients in that Shea-Butter anymore because it has expired. However, If you are not properly storing your buttters in cool and dark places, your leave your butters exposed to over "rippening".
So, if you see that your deep golden yellow Shea-Butter is now a pale yellow, it has expired. So if you ever ask “When does it expire” and they say, “It doesn’t”, they either don’t know, or have added preservatives so that it never expires. If that's the case, it's not all natural.
